The Show

Ady - Theatre Of Floyd

Growing up in a chaotic household, for me, music was an escape. My older brothers Ollie and Zain loved music, from ABBA to Motörhead with everything in between. I have always been a brilliant artist, and at a young age and would get to paint Eddie (of iron maiden), Bowie, Kiss and other logos onto my brothers leather jackets. Heavily influenced by Gene Simmons of Kiss, Zain bought me my first bass guitar when I was 14 years old. I was gigging by 15 in a female fronted original rock band called Bon Voyage (I didn’t choose that name!!) and my life in music began. 

At the age of 17 I met the firework known as Simon Pellecchia (the drummer of Theatre of Floyd). We formed 3 different original bands in that early 8-year period, all influenced by David Bowie, U2, Simple Minds and of course Pink Floyd. Although we never made it as an original band, we remained together and best of friends. His family were very much a part of my teens and 20’s, including Ben, his brother (the baby of the band, rhythm and acoustic guitarist of Theatre of Floyd) he figures later in our story.

 I left the music scene at 25 selling everything I’d got and concentrated on the art, but Music was my life and I couldn’t keep away. At 29 years old I excitedly answered an advert in AdMag, ‘Bono looking for Adam Clayton and the Edge’. I took Simon along with me (yeah Simon can play anything!) and we met the most charismatic of souls Paul Collyer (the vocalist of Theatre of Floyd). In 2001 we founded U2UK, a U2 Tribute band. Over the years it has taken us all over the world and continues to do so, as strong as it ever has been. On the circuit we met Simon Wright whose confidence walked in the room before he did (vocalist of Theatre of Floyd) he’d cover for Paul as Bono when Paul couldn’t make a show. 

This brings me to 2022 and a conversation I had with Simon. ‘Let’s do Floyd..’ With all we’ve learnt and what we have achieved I was sure we could make this project work as Floyd was our first love and always had been. Organically we formed Theatre of Floyd from this group of friends, and were now on the hunt for the perfect Gilmour. I think the most ironic moment being when Ben said ‘Apparently my neighbour plays guitar and he loves Gilmour, shall I get him down?’ I remember his audition so clearly, I welled up when he cracked into the intro of Sorrow, I’d never heard a more intricate precise replica of Gilmour’s sound. At the end of a brilliant, exciting jam together Toby said ‘I know a keys guy I’ve worked with called Ben Topley, he’s the nicest guy and he’d love this’ He was right.

 I believe we were born that day when we all practiced for the first time together in Toby’s summer house and here we are today and ready to bring you a show we envisaged performing, a show so spectacular it’ll bring tears to your eyes.